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Getting the most out of your sixth formers
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Some ideas for further reading
and research
Lots of extra work? Not really.
The following is meant to be a selection box of ideas to choose from and consult. It is not suggested that you try to read all of
them in any subject, but that you select what you think might be interesting. That’s the point really – dip in, experiment and
see what grabs you. Hopefully some of them will inspire your interest even more. A while ago the Russell Group universities
published a list of skills that they wanted to see in students, who applied to them. They included –
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evidence of being an independent learner
evidence of an ability to do research
evidence of an ability to write a clear and coherent essay
evidence of an ability to think critically and solve problems
evidence of an ability to contribute ideas to a discussion or debate.
Following up on the suggestions below will be evidence of independent research and will give you plenty of ideas. Above all, it
should show you whether your interest in a particular subject is great enough to want to study it to a much higher level. The lists
are by no means definitive. Talk to your teachers at school and get ideas from them. Talk to students who are taking your subjects
at a higher level. If there are former students from the school, who are up at university doing courses you think you would be
interested in, arrange to be put in touch with them. Meet up with them when they come home and look at some of their notes.
When you come to apply for university, admissions tutors will be very impressed if you can say that you have already looked over
first year undergraduate work.
Biology
Biology covers all of human biology, zoology and botany so you need to decide whether you want to study all aspects of it or
just some of it. You might also want to experiment with finding out about specialist areas such as virology, microbiology, marine
biology and genetics to see whether you’d like to specialise from the beginning or study more generally before deciding on any
more specialist options.
Books to look at – The Chemistry of Life (Steven Rose), anything by the geneticist Steve Jones (note particularly Language of
the Genes, Almost Like a Whale and Y:The Ascent of Man), Genome (Matt Ridley), The Wisdom of the Genes (Wills), Darwin’s
Dangerous Idea (Daniel Dennett), The Selfish Gene and The Extended Phenotype (Dawkins), Virolution (Ryan), Life Ascending
(Nick Lane), The Revenge of Gaia (Lovelock), 50 Genetic Ideas You Really Need To Know (Henderson), Zoobiquity (Horowitz &
Bowers), Creation: The Origin of Life (Rutherford), The Sixth Extermination (Kolbert) and Great Myths of the Brain (Jarrett).
Read journals such as Nature and New Scientist in particular, but all scientific journals will have biological items in them. For
Biochemistry a good Handbook of Biochemistry/Principles of Biochemistry textbook is useful for back-up reading as you do
topics at A level. For Genetics familiarise yourself with sex-linked conditions, genetic ratios and for population genetics the
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and find out about case studies. For Zoology look at Taxonomy (the science of classification – what
do ‘species’ and ‘genus’ mean?) and at such things as the place of primates within it. TV programmes by David Attenborough and
George McGavin are always of interest. Keep articles from newspapers on medical advances.
For web sites try www.arkive.org, www.ted.com, www.thenakedscientists.com.
Go to Biology web sites on Wikipedia and Google ‘Hot’ Biology web sites. There are loads on all sorts of topics.
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Physics
Books to read – anything by John Gribben (note particularly In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat and In Search of the Multiverse), John
Polkinghorne on the quantum world (he is an astrophysicist who is also a theologian), The Physics of the Impossible and Parallel
Worlds (Kaku), Hyperspace (Khan), Smashing Physics: inside the world’s biggest experiment (Butterworth), The Trouble with
Physics (Smolin), Chaos (Gleich), Quantum (Kumar), How to teach Quantum Physics to your Dog (Orzel), 50 Physics Ideas You
Really Need To Know (Baker), The Elegant Universe (Greene), Just Six Numbers (Rees), About Time (Frank), The Wonders of the
Solar System (Brian Cox - anything by him is good). Also anything by Jim Al-Khalili and the Short Introduction series has a very
good one on Chaos Theory. The Infinite Monkey Cage is an excellent radio programme (on Radio 4 and iPlayer) featuring Brian
Cox and Robin Ince and combining theoretical physics with stand up comedy (podcasts are available of all their programmes).
Read New Scientist and Scientific American, if you can get hold of it. For web sites look at www.ted.com, www.thenakedscientists.
com, www.galaxyzoo.com, Google Physics web sites including The Physics Classroom, The Student Room etc and the web site of
the Institute of Physics. Keep articles from newspapers on latest space research findings.
Maths
Maths Departments seem to be interested only in the Maths you’ve done, so the more you do the better – further Maths, further
further Maths, STEP level papers etc..
Books of interest however might include – Fermat’s Last Theorem (Singh), Does God Play Dice and Nature’s Numbers (Stewart),
Easy as Pi (Ivanov), The Music of the Primes (du Sautoy), Just Six Numbers (Rees), In Code (Flannery), Numbers, Sets and
Axioms (Hamilton), The Universe and the Teacup – the Maths of Truth and Beauty (K.C. Cole), Algebra and Geometry (Beardon),
Hidden Connections, Double Meanings (Wells), Elastic Fishponds... The Maths that governs our World (Elwes), The Norm
Chronicles (Blastland & Spitgethaltes), Our Mathematical Universe (Tegmark).
For web sites look at www.ted.com, www.nrich.maths.org/public, www.mathsnetalevel.com, www.planetmath.org.
History
What you do by way of wider reading depends on the period(s)/topics you want to study or just want to dip into because they sound
interesting. A good idea is to choose a couple of topics from your Year 12 work and go into them in more depth as ‘specialist subjects’.
Then do the same in Year 13. If both are very 20th century based, read up a few topics on other periods – admissions tutors are fed up
with candidates who seem only to know about Hitler and Stalin and are unaware of anything before 1900. The Time Traveller’s Guide to
Medieval England (Mortimer) and The Winter King – Henry VII (Penn) are great introductions to their respective periods.
Arrange with your subject teacher(s) to do one or two term time essays as ‘extended essays’ in preparation for possibly sending
them up to university or to have referred to in your application. Look at political philosophy (Machiavelli, Marx, Mill – the ‘Very
Short Introduction to... series’ is very good) and/or one or two political biographies. General history books of interest are Long
Shadows (Paris) a study of propaganda and attempts to subvert the historical record, Voodoo Histories (Aaronovitch) a look at
conspiracy theories over the ages and Virtual History (Ferguson) a look at what might have happened if certain momentous events
had turned out differently. Read book reviews – that way you hear what the book says and the views of the reviewer, two for the
price of one!
The other key thing, if you are not already, is to become every parent’s nightmare – awkward, argumentative and bolshie. It
doesn’t have to be at home – don’t get kicked out! – but get involved in debating and public speaking, take every opportunity in
class to argue and express opinions, taking nothing for granted. There is no such thing in History as ‘received wisdom’.
There are loads of History web sites (just Google ‘History web sites’) and any topics you follow up, no matter how obscure,
will have other links. History Today and the BBC History reviews are among a host of general, as well as specialised, magazines
available. Listen to History topics from the radio programme In Our Time (available in iplayer) as they contain good ideas and
opinions.
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Geography
You need to decide whether you are a ‘whole’ geographer or interested more in either the physical side of the subject or the human.
That will determine what you want to specialise in and read up about. Choose two or three topics from your work in Year 12 and go
into greater depth in them. Arrange with your subject teacher(s) to write a couple of your Year 12 essays as ‘extended essays’ so that
they can be sent or referred to in references for university.
Books that have been particularly recommended are – Earth, An Intimate History (Fortey), Globalism and regionalism and
Capitalism as if the Earth mattered (Porritt) Future Shock (Tofler), A Blueprint for Survival (The Ecologist and Penguin books),
Population Geography (Jones), The Skeptical Environmentalist (Lomberg – indeed anything by him), Jungle: A Harrowing True
Story of Survival (Ghinsberg), Surviving Extremes (Middleton – he teaches Geog. at Oxford), Earth From Space (Johnston), Belching
Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola (Thomas), anything by James Lovelock on Gaia and for the human and cultural
side Tribe (Bruce Parry) or anything by the Prof. of Geog. at UCLA Jared Diamond.
Read Geography Review for case studies, become a junior member of the Royal Geographical Society and consult www.mongabay.
com for environmental geography. Look at the web site of Danny Dorling for lots of excellent statistical material and his book So
You Think You Know About Britain. You can get other ideas from www.gapminder.org, www.facingthefuture.org, www.ted.com, www.
gogeo.ac.uk. Keep up to date with natural disasters and their causes!
Chemistry
For wider reading try – The Chemistry of Life (Steven Rose), Chemistry (Brock), Principles of Biochemistry (White, Handler
and Smith) as a backup to all your A level topics, Chemistry for Changing Times (Hill, McCreary and Kolb), Materials Science
(Ramsden), The Periodic Kingdom (Atkins), Mendeleyev’s Dream – the search for the elements (Strathern), Periodic Tables – The
Curious Life of the Elements (Aldersty & Williams), The Disappearing Spoon (Kean).
Also check out the periodicals New Scientist, Nature, Chemistry World and Education in Chemistry. For web sites look at www.ted.com,
www.thenakedscientists.com, Google ‘chemistry web sites’ and there are several on different areas of chemistry and from a number of
UK and US universities. Link up with other sites to do with biology and material sciences. Keep brushing up those practical skills too.
Politics/PPE
You don’t have to be politically committed but, if you are, use all the contacts you can to get work experience, work shadowing etc – of
the local council, your local MP, even your Euro-MP. Political autobiographies are interesting, though biased – among recent ones those
by Chris Mullin and Jack Straw are to be recommended. In more general terms The Origins of Political Order (Fukuyama), The Spectre
At the Feast (Gamble), The Establishment and how they get away with it (Owen Jones). British Politics (Madgwick), Mind The Gap
(Mount), if you’re into American politics Barack Obama’s books and George Stephanopoulos’ All Too Human is a study of Clinton’s
first election campaign. Sophie’s World (Gaarder) is a general introduction to Philosophy and there is What Philosophy Is (O’Hear).
In terms of actual works of Philosophy, you need to be careful not to dive in at the deep end and put yourself off the subject for life.
Plato’s Gorgias is a very good starting point as it’s short and examines two just key themes, ‘oratory is deceit’ and ‘might is right’.
It does so very clearly and is a good introduction to the ‘Socratic method’. You might like to take a theme such as ‘truth’ and look at
how different philosophers have viewed it – What is Good? by A.C. Grayling is a very good starting point). You might be interested
in taking a look at such ‘isms’ as Fascism, Communism, Totalitarianism etc – this would particularly link with an interest in History.
Peter Cave has produced How to outwit Aristotle. Julian Baggini’s Do you think what you think you think? is excellent and more
recent are The Philosophical Life (Miller) and What do we really know? (Blackburn).
For web sites look at www.ted.com, www.politicsinspires.com, Google ‘Philosophy web sites’ and you may be interested in The
Philosophers’ Magazine or Philosophy Today. There are hundreds of politics sites, depending on your interests. For Economics see
the separate section. Get involved in debating and public speaking and, of course, keep up to date with current political issues. Know
who the key members of the Cabinet and Opposition are and what they are proposing. For foreign political awareness choose an area
such as US or European politics or the politics of another area that really interests you such as Africa, Asia or South America and
familiarise yourself with the key issues there. Keep articles from newspapers on items of particular interest.
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Medicine
The key thing with Medicine is to show that you have the personal qualities they are looking for as well the academic ones. That means
getting as much experience as you can of working with others, who are in some way or other requiring help. Your school may have a
Special Needs Department, in which case offer to help with younger students who may be on the autism/ Asperger’s spectrum or who
have other specific conditions. Use that experience to learn more about how to identify the condition, treat it (if possible) or at least
alleviate it. Help with one to one mentoring work to show you have good inter-personal skills. Apply to your local NHS Trust to get
experience at a local hospital, clinic or GP’s practice. Ideally get all three and, when you do, milk it for all it’s worth in terms of letting
people know that you want to learn and experience as much as possible. Keep a portfolio of all your experiences and follow up on all
you see by researching the various conditions you come across and learn more about them. If you are finding it difficult to get contacts
within the local NHS Trust, contact your local Rotary Club. It will have practising and retired medics among its members, who will
have contacts and be willing to help. Check whether you’d prefer the traditional method of teaching or problem-based learning and
whether you’d prefer an intercalated course that would give you the chance to do a research degree as part of your course.
For reading you might like to try – Do No Harm (Marsh), Hippocratic Oaths (Tallis), A very short introduction to Medical Ethics
(Short intro’ series), The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine (Le Fanu), NHS Plc – the privatisation of health care (Pollock), Betraying
the NHS (Mandelstram), NHS SOS (Davis & Tullis), The Political Economy of Health Care (Tudor Hart), Complications: A surgeon’s
notes on an imperfect science (Gawande), Causing Death and Saving Lives (Glover), How doctors think (Groopman), Diagnosis;
Dispatches from the Frontlines of Medical Mysteries (Sanders). Keep up to date with and follow up any news items on new medical
discoveries and break-throughs. Join the junior BMA and read the BMJ (British Medical Journal), look at www.ted.com,
For Veterinary Science get as much experience with animals as you can. Contact local vets, farms, wildlife parks, sanctuaries,
zoos etc to get experience with more than just domestic pets.
For Pharmacy get experience with at least one pharmacy practice and, if possible, with a pharmaceutical company. Read anything
by Ben Goldacre and check out his web site as well as www.ted.com.
For Dentistry get experience with a dental practice and, if you can, a hospital department which deals with more complicated
surgery. Things that show you have good manual dexterity also help. Running a dental practice also involves business skills so
involvement in something like a Young Enterprise company would be useful.
For Optometry read A Very Short Introduction to the Eye (Lund), The Eye Book (Grierson) and The Ophthobook (Tim Root).
Law
Most Law books are very intimidating and full of jargon so go easy to start with – The Justice Game by Robertson is an excellent
and very readable book by someone who has been involved in some of the leading human rights trials of the last 50 years, Getting
into Law (ed. Lygo), The Search for Justice (Rozenburg), Understanding Law (Adams and Brownsword), Law and Modern
Society (Atiyah), On Evidence (Murphy – just dip into this), The Rule of Law (Bingham), Bonfire of the Liberties: New Labour,
Human Rights (Ewing) – look at general introductions to different areas of law such as Human Rights Law, Contract Law, Tort,
Criminal , Land Law etc. and see which areas you find more interesting. Also very good is the Very Short Introduction To... series
e.g. ...to Human Rights (Clapham), ... to the Philosophy of Law (Wacks) and the New Penguin Guide to the Law.
Spend a morning or day at the local Magistrates’ Court and tell the ushers why you’re there – they may be able to arrange for
you to meet the magistrates. Spend a day at a nearby Crown Court – if you live near London, visit the Old Bailey where there are
18 courts – you will find the ushers very helpful in telling you what’s on and where. Get work experience with a solicitor and/
or barrister if you can – get in touch with your local Rotary Club for contacts if neither you nor the school have contacts you can
use. Get involved in public speaking and debating and mock trial competitions – if your school only has them for junior students,
volunteer to help coach them.
There are two radio programmes that are very good and there are pod casts of them on iPlayer – they are Law in Action and
Unreliable Evidence. Useful web sites are www.ted.com, www.lawstudent.tv,www.lawcom.gov.uk (for Law Commission reports)
and theguardian.com/law/studying-law. Look at campaign groups such as Liberty and the Howard League for penal reform.
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Modern Languages
This is a bit tricky as there isn’t much literature in the A level course these days. Do some literature though, mostly in translation,
but as much as you can in the original.
Listen to radio broadcasts, use newspapers and get as much feel as you can for the cultures, politics, economics, social issues and
dip into the history as well. Films are usually a good and entertaining way of building up vocabulary. For France it would be odd not
to be able to appreciate its contribution to world history via such as the French Revolution or in the case of Spain the impact of the
Spanish Civil War or Meso-American conquests. Where there has been a significant impact on philosophy as well, an introduction
to that would be good e.g in French Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, Sartre or in German Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche etc.. The Very Short
Introduction series is a very good starting point. You might also want to dip into linguistics and see whether that is an option you
would like to take up at university.
Architecture
Build up your own portfolio of art work, drawings etc and your reading will be dictated by your own tastes. What buildings in the
world do most for you and why? Then read around their history and who designed them. There are a number of works comparing
English cathedrals for instance – a good place to start because of the design issues that were faced and overcome by builders of a
much earlier age. If there are National Trust properties near you, look at their architecture and find out about restoration work and
how that is undertaken. Familiarise yourself with different architectural styles and the work of different architects (whose work
most inspires you and why?).
Work experience with a couple of different architects would be useful, particularly if they do very different types of work.
Contact your local council’s planning department and see if you can do some work shadowing there. If your school is having any
building work done, ask to be introduced to the architects and site managers and monitor what goes on. You might even want to
design a better school or sixth form centre and submit your own ideas. Do some research on materials science too, sustainability
projects and some of the latest research on energy saving and even buildings that have self-regulating and self-correcting control
mechanisms. Architects are not people who just work at desks by themselves so any evidence of working with a team and taking a
lead role would be useful. The local Rotary Club will have contacts with architects if your school doesn’t.
Useful web sites are – www.ted.com, the ‘best architecture’ web sites, www.architecture.com (the Royal institute of British
Architects site) and keep abreast of the Stirling awards, the top prize for architecture in the UK.
English
It very much depends on what you are interested in. Ideally choose one or two novelists, one or two poets (admissions tutors are
always complaining that too few candidates have much knowledge of poetry), one or two playwrights and literature from more
than one period of history (so that it’s not all 20th century or all Shakespeare).
Experiment and dip in to different genres of literature and find out what really excites you to read more. Reading other works by
the authors you have for GCSE or for A level will give you different perspectives on their work and allow you to make interesting
comparisons. If you are interested in creative writing, build up a portfolio of your own work. If you are thinking about journalism
as a career, write for your school magazine or newspaper – if there isn’t one, why not start one?
Local newspapers are usually very pleased to accept copy about events, sports fixtures and things going on in schools so write
reports and send them in. Unsurprisingly for English, the advice is ‘read, read, read’ but make it for pleasure rather than it become
a burden. There are good discussions of literary topics in the archive of the radio programme In Our Time, which is available on
iplayer.
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Engineering
Maths and Physics are the two important subjects here so you need to protect those. You then need to decide whether you want
to specialise in one particular area of engineering (civil, mechanical, electrical, aeronautical etc.) or whether you’d prefer to
do ‘general engineering’ with an introduction to all of them before deciding how to specialise. Visits to university engineering
departments should help that decision and in Jan/Feb of Year 12 sign up for one of the Headstart courses that operate each summer
and that give you the chance to go to a top Engineering Department for a whole week in the summer and work on an engineering
project. It is a brilliant introduction to what the subject would be like at university, it really tests out whether it’s what you want
and it looks really good on an application form.
You may also want to consider the option of a gap year and gaining a placement with a major engineering company for six to nine
months between school and college. The Year in Industry scheme helps to organise these and, if they go well, you will probably end up
with the offer of a job during college vacations or even a guaranteed job at the end of your course. It’s even been known for companies
to be so impressed with the work that was done on a placement that they sponsored some students through university altogether.
For further research check out www.ted.com, www.discoverengineering.org, www.raeng.org.uk (the Royal Academy of
Engineering site) and there are lots associated with the different disciplines within engineering. Keep abreast of major engineering
projects such as airport expansion, HS2, motorway widening, new bridges etc.
Economics
The Victorian historian, Thomas Carlyle, called Economics ‘the dismal science’ and that leads to the debate as to whether it is a
science or a discipline. The further Economics is taken, the more mathematical it becomes so you need to protect your Maths and
not taking it for A level will prove a big disadvantage for any top university.
You need to keep up to date with current economic issues and debates – not difficult these days with the emphasis on the problems
with the global economy and this will overlap with politics and debates on taxation, welfare, borrowing, public spending, currency
crises etc. If you are taking the subject at A level, pick two or three topics (a combination of macro- and micro- economics) and
study them in depth. Arrange for a couple of essays to be done as ‘extended essays’ and marked accordingly and get involved
in such as the Bank of England Challenge on controlling inflation. If you are planning to go into Finance or banking, work
experience with a bank or finance institution will be important. Give yourself a notional £20,000 each year and see how you would
invest it and (hopefully) make a profit – best to make this ‘notional’ just in case!
Good reads are – Freakonomics (Levitt and Dubner), The Lexus and the Olive Tree (a study of globalisation) (Friedman), Small
is Beautiful (Schumacher), The Ascent of Money (Ferguson), The Price of Inequality and The Great Divide (Stiglitz), End This
Depression Now (Krugman), How the West Was Lost (Mayo), 22 Things They Didn’t tell You About Capitalism (Chang). The
Undercover Economist (Harford), The End of Poverty (Sachs), What Money Can’t Buy; the moral limits of the market (Sandel).
The Very Short Introduction to Marx is a good study and look at the ideas of current leading thinkers in economics such as
Amartya Sen (his theories on foreign aid creating dependency) and Joseph Stiglitz and of presenters such as Robert Peston and
Stephanie Flanders.
Look at web sites such as www.ted.com, www.economist.com, www.CNNMoney.com, www.econtalk.com, www.ft.com (Financial
Times site).
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and some final advice...
Use local universities and their departments which often have public lectures, go to Open Days and ask for ideas. Hearing from
them what current research is going on will always be useful and good to follow up on and show awareness about in your personal
statement and, if you get the chance, at interview. The colleges of London University put on taster days and courses each June and
July (details are usually published in February/March). They are usually free and will give you really useful insights into what
studying certain subjects at university will be like. If your school does the Extended Project Qualification, have a go at it – it is
brilliant evidence of being an independent learner, researcher and of being able to write an extended essay. The Sutton Trust offers
excellent summer schools at a number of universities and is a non-profit making organisation so keeping the costs down and there
are scholarships if the cost is beyond your means.
If you are serious about wanting to aim for one of our top universities (and why not?) ...the challenge I am setting you is this. Get
the best results you can in the courses you are currently taking and alongside do three extra things each month that are specific
towards reading round and researching what you think you might want to apply for. Over time that will build up to be a really
strong body of evidence that you should be given a place. Remember it is a competitive business, but with the right preparation and
enthusiasm (that’s hugely important), you should be in with a very good chance. Hopefully I am only asking you to discover things
that you will enjoy doing so it won’t seem like much extra work at all!
Enjoy the journey and best of luck.
Peter Rawling
PiXL6
If you want ideas on subjects I’ve not included here or more on those that are, your Head of Sixth will know how to contact me for
any further help.
Science and Geography students in particular have recommended that I mention Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything
as an excellent general read and Ken Robinson’s The Element – How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything has inspired a
number of my students. It says it all really – find your passion and go with it and may that passion always be with you! Matthew
Syed’s book, Bounce, is also really good on motivation and self-organisation
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Appendix
Further details on
subject specialisms
When thinking about preparing the personal statement on your UCAS form, look at it from
the perspective of an admissions tutor. If you are going to get a lot more applications than
you have places, what criteria are you going to adopt to decide who gets an offer and who
doesn’t? What qualities would you be looking for in the successful candidates?
The following are used in subject-specific breakout groups, when we have them. They
refer to the qualities being looked for and also raise the sorts of question, problems and
scenarios that are often asked at interviews.
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English, History, Geography and PPE Specialists
What do you think are the qualities a good English specialist/ Historian/ Geographer/ Philosopher/ Economist needs to have?
What evidence do you think you have to show you have those qualities?
How do you think you could demonstrate those qualities?
In the specialist area you are interested in name any four major controversies/ differences in interpretation you are aware of
and quote two arguments that support each side of the dispute.
English
If you had to nominate 1 Shakespeare play, 1 other play, 2 novels, 1 modern poet, 1 poet from an earlier age and 1 foreign author
to be studied at A level, what would you choose and why?
What is the point of a degree in English?
History
If you had to nominate 2 historical figures, 2 historical events and 2 historical documents (a) in the 20th Century (b) from earlier
times to study, what would you choose and why?
“The study of history is fruitless. We can learn nothing from it because no two sets of events are ever the same.” Is that true?
What is the point of a degree in history?
Geography
What evidence is there that global warming is no more than seasonal variation written large?
“All talk of conservation is pointless until or unless we tackle population control. Do you agree?
What is of particular interest geographical interest in your home area?
What is the point of a degree in geography?
Philosophy, Politics or Economics
Are ‘practical philosophy’, ‘ethical foreign policy’ and ‘green economics’ contradictions in terms?
What is ‘free will’? Philosophically can it ever be right to kill?
Should we hold more referenda? Should 16 year olds have the vote?
What are the arguments for and against having fixed term parliaments?
What is the point of privatisation?
What are the consequences of charging interest rates?
These are the sorts of question that interviewers at top universities will expect you to be interested in. Apart from a good knowledge
of your A level work they will expect you to have taken an interest in the world around you and in current issues. All of these
subjects are ones that require you to argue and form (and justify) your own views. The more experience you can get of that, the
better. Look for arguments and debates, accumulate ideas on both sides and decide with which side you agree and then defend
that view. In interviews at university you are likely to be asked for your views and they will then argue the opposite (even if they
privately agree with you) just to see how far you can hold your ground. For PPE you do not have to be politically committed but, if
you are, that should give you contacts and you should use them to get as much experience and as many ideas as possible.
Qualities
You need to be keen a reader, analytical and critical, someone who can take in a lot of information, but quickly differentiate between
what’s important and what isn’t, able to spot bias and appreciate the context within which things are said, done or written. Take
nothing for granted, don’t be a passive acceptor of ‘received wisdom’, question everything and be very argumentative. The ideal
qualification is to be sceptical. You will need to be able to express ideas clearly and concisely, so practise this both in your notemaking and essays and in any creative writing. If you write short stories, poems, press articles etc, keep a portfolio and take it with
you to any interview. For more ideas as to how to demonstrate these qualities, follow the instructions in the main handout.
Ideas and argument are the life-blood of these subjects so really seek to get into as many debates and discussions as you can.
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Medics
What do you think are the qualities a good doctor needs to have?
What evidence do you think you have to show that you have those qualities?
How do you think you can acquire such evidence?
What are the biggest issues facing the Health Service at the moment?
What are the biggest issues likely to be facing the health service in the future?
Ethics
1 You have 5 organs for transplant but 20 potential recipients. Among them are a drug addict, three who smoke, two who are
alcoholics, two who are obese and two who pursue extreme sports. Should any of those factors matter? How would you decide
which patients received the organs?
2 There is a proposal to set up a free needle exchange scheme in your local area for injector drug users. Basically the users
would be able to exchange used needles for new, sterile ones on a strictly one for one basis. It would cost £150,000 per year to
run such a scheme. What do you think are the arguments for and against such an idea?
3 You are being given £1 million with the instruction to use it to fund a health initiative in your local area. What might you choose to do and why?
Think about these before looking at the answers and advice that follow.
Qualities
The Dean of Medicine at Cardiff once said he looked for six key things1 The potential for high academic achievement
2 Evidence of a caring and committed attitude
3 An understanding of the demands of being a doctor
4 An ability to communicate effectively (be approachable and be good at listening and explaining)
5 A willingness to accept responsibility
6 A broad range of other interests
You might well have chosen other good ones such as dedication, persistence, patience, optimism, the ability to inspire others’ trust and
confidence etc. Ideas for showing that you have them – help at a local care home, at a special unit for the handicapped, with a local charity
such as Mencap, some local care teams have young people working with stroke victims helping recover their mobility or powers of speech
or at school help out with mentoring or literacy schemes, with special needs etc. If there are young students with speech handicaps or on
the autism/asperger’s spectrum, work with them and via that gain insights into their condition and care, how it can be treated etc.
What problems are facing, and will face, the health service?
Answers – there are sweeping reforms in how the NHS is being run (look up The Health and Social Care Act), there’s the problem of
financial limits on resources (the health budget isn’t being cut but it is not rising as fast as it used to) and there are the problems of an
ageing population (dementia, alzheimer’s, certain types of cancer etc). In the future these problems will increase, certain diseases will
become more drug resistant, there will be rapidly changing technology (look at the recent advances in prosthetic surgery for instance as a
result of the Iraq and Afghan Wars) and there will be an increased expectation of the availability of replacement organs, gene therapy etc.
Answers to the Ethics questions...
There isn’t a right answer for No 1, but “I’d put all the names in a hat” probably would be regarded as a wrong one! A ‘taxi rank’ view,
saying that whoever had been waiting the longest also wouldn’t go down well. The main factor would be clinical need. The next would
be whether the patient would be able to live an independent life (that would be difficult for the addicts). You’d also take wider health and
welfare factors into account – eg if one of the patients was a single mother with two dependent young children.
No 2 – arguments against are cost, appearing to encourage drug use etc, but if you can stop just six people contracting HIV which
becomes full blown AIDS, you will save more than £150,000 a year on treatment costs. You can also offer all who come along the
chance to go into rehab and programmes to come off the drugs and at the same time be able to monitor local use as to whether it was
stable, decreasing or getting worse. That could be important when allocating future financial resources.
No 3 - £1 million is not a lot, but they would like to hear you investing it into a campaign of preventive medicine eg getting expectant
and young mothers to eat well so that babies are born healthier and stronger or an education campaign on smoking or drinking or STDs.
Tackling obesity and preventing diabetes would make for good campaigns as well.
Get familiar with your local NHS Trust– there should be a report on how good it is and whether it has specialist units and services and
how good they are. Are there any particular health issues in your area? If so, are the services to treat them adequate?
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Lawyers
What do you think are the qualities a good lawyer needs to have?
What evidence do you think you have to show that you have those qualities?
How do you think you can acquire such evidence?
What current legal issues are you aware of?
Is law there to restrict freedom or to protect it?
“Good law reflects the will of the majority.” Is that true?
Take a look at the accompanying scenarios and consider the legal issues. (ie what you think are questions in law – you are not
expected to have the knowledge of what the law actually says.)
Dip into one or two areas of law to see what you think of them – criminal law, contract law, human rights law, tort and business and
consumer law are good starting points. Land law, constitutional, family law etc are rather heavier going.
Law scenarios
1
2
A and B, living in the topmost flat of a house, wish to commit suicide. They soak all the carpets and furnishings in petrol and
set light to them. The floor collapses and debris sets fire to C’s flat below and C is killed. Firemen are unable to save the house
or B but A is dragged out alive. Two firemen are killed trying to put out the blaze. What legal issues do you think arise here?
Jim and three friends decide to celebrate the end of their GCSE exams by holding a secret party in the school library, which
looks out over a main road. Between them they knock back three bottles of wine, which they proceed to throw out of the library
windows at passing motorists. One of the motorists phones the police and a squad car arrives. In the meantime, Jim has accepted
a £20 bet that he will run naked around the running track alongside the library building. The police interrupt him in the middle
of this and PC Coshem gets hold of Jim saying, “I am arresting you for an act of public nuisance likely to corrupt and deprave
old ladies.” Jim says, “there’s no such charge,” and struggles free, in the course of which PC Coshem is kneed in the groin. Jim is
arrested for assault and taken back inside the school to collect his clothes. “Whilst we’re here we might as well check your locker
for drugs”, say the police and they march Jim off to his locker in which they find three items of cutlery from the school kitchen.
Jim is immediately accused by them of theft. One of his three friends, Ben, is told to open his locker. He refuses and is arrested.
Jim and Ben are then bundled into the squad car, but instead of being taken to the police station directly they are driven to a
nearby lay-by and questioned for an hour before being taken to a station. There they are left in separate cells for two hours until
they are brought out to make statements and then their parents are phoned to come and pick them up. The police say that they’ll
probably call them back for a police warning. The two boys say they won’t accept one.
What legal issues do you think arise here? (Please don’t try to act out this scenario in your school!)
Have a go at these before looking at the answers that follow.
These are the sorts of scenario you could get at a university interview. They do not test legal knowledge but your ability to spot what
would be a legal issue, eg in the first one whether trying to commit suicide is a legal offence. You are not expected to know that in law
now it is not an offence, although aiding someone else to commit suicide is. In early Victorian times it was an offence to try to commit
suicide – oddly enough an offence that was punishable by death!
1 Whether trying to commit suicide is an offence.
Whether assisting someone else to commit suicide is an offence.
Whether setting fire to your own property can be considered an offence.
If they were renting the flat, clearly there would be an offence against someone else’s property. What offence?
Are they responsible for the death of C? If so, what offence is it?
Are they responsible for the deaths of the two firemen? If so, what is the offence?
Clearly there would also be legal issues over A’s defence and degree of responsibility for his own actions and whether he has any sort of recognised defence.
2 If the party is secret, have they permission or right to be there? If not, is that trespass? If at night, has there been any illegal entry?
Is it legal for them to drink alcohol under such circumstances?
Where did the wine come from? If it was bought, is there an issue of selling alcohol under-age? If it was taken without
permission from home, does that constitute theft?
If passing motorists and their cars are being put at risk of damage and accidents, what offences arise?
Does running naked around the track represent any sort of offence? If so, is the bet an incitement to crime and therefore aiding
and abetting it?
Is Jim being arrested legitimately – if not, has he the right to resist? Is the injury to PC Coshem assault or, if he’s struggling free,
isJim being assaulted by being manhandled?
Is the locker search legitimate? What are the criteria for theft? Can it be theft if the cutlery hasn’t left the premises?
Is the search of Ben’s locker legitimate? Is his arrest legal?
Are the rules for the treatment and questioning of juveniles being breached in the treatment of the boys after they are taken from
the school?
Is it right that they make statements before parents are contacted and there is no suggestion of legal representation?
Can a police warning be given, if the so-called offenders don’t admit guilt?
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Mathematicians and scientists
What do you think are the qualities a good mathematician/ scientist/ engineer needs to have?
What evidence do you think you have to show that you have those qualities?
How do you think you could develop those qualities?
How many current research projects in Maths, Science or Engineering do you think you could talk about for 3 minutes or more?
Two problems for you to have a go at.
1 “Drug use doubling in our schools” screamed the newspaper headline.
This was based on a survey of 9,000 schoolchildren aged 11-15 from 305 different schools. They had all been asked, among
a host of other things, whether they had used cocaine during the past year. 2% were recorded as having said “Yes”. This was
compared to a survey done the previous year, where only 1% had been recorded as saying “Yes”. All the other statistics quoted
from the survey were quoted in whole numbers. Is the newspaper headline necessarily justified?
2 Companies selling olive oil used the following in a campaign to promote their product, claiming that olive oil could help prevent
skin wrinkling. “An Australian study in 2001 found that olive oil (in combination with fruit, vegetables and pulses) offered
measurable protection against skin wrinkling. Eat more olive oil by using it in salad dressings or dip bread in it rather than using butter”. H
ow valid is the claim?
(Both of these examples come from Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science – much to be recommended to all scientists.)
Think about these before looking at the answers further on.
What follows are typical of the questions you’d be expected to be interested in and to have tried to follow up.
3 Maths: is Maths invented or discovered? Is Maths a language? “Maths is mostly abstract and irrelevant” – is that true? Some
people talk about ‘the beauty of Maths’ – what do they mean?
Physics: why does ‘dark matter’ matter? What is ‘light’? What is the ‘quantum’ in ‘quantum physics’? Can you explain why
we only ever see one side of the moon? Is life possible without gravity? Explain Archimedes’ principle.
Engineering: why does a boomerang come back? Compare the avionics of a jumbo jet and a microlight. How does a helicopter
stay up in the air? Show the forces acting on a ladder. How does a microwave work? what is the difference between a petrol and
a diesel engine in a car? what do you need to take into account when building a bridge?
Chemistry: why does the boiling point of water rise as salt is dissolved in it? What makes some chemicals explosive? What
makes drugs physiologically active? Sketch the graph of what happens when a strong acid is titrated with a weak base. Explain
the shape.
Biology: why is carbon so important in living systems? What are the arguments for preserving biodiversity? What effect do
you think global warming could have on the evolution of species? How could you test to see if a disease such as schizophrenia is
genetic? What are probiotic drinks and how do they work?
...that last question is typical of what interviewers at top universities will expect you to know. Apart from a good knowledge of your A
level work they will expect you to have taken an interest in the world immediately around you and in things that are relevant to what you
say you are interested in. Scientists are expected to be CURIOUS i.e. to want to know not just that things work but why and how they
work. They’d also be interested in whether you can see practical implications and applications from this knowledge and possibly as a
result be creative and discover or invent new things. Don’t worry – you’re not expected to be winning Nobel prizes whist still at school –
just obviously keen to push both your own and the subject’s boundaries.
Qualities
Need to be good analysts, to enjoy the challenge of problem-solving, be determined not to be beaten by things and have a keen desire to
know/ find out things.
Engineers need to be good communicators and most engineers and scientists usually work in teams, therefore need to be good team
members. Chemists in particular need good practical skills.
to develop them… requires practice (especially true of mathematicians). Do wider reading and research, follow up on ideas and start
seeing connections between different fields of research and how they might work together to push the boundaries of science. Interest in
current research reflects how keen you are on science.
Answers to the two problems
1
A non-statistical point: the use might not necessarily have been in ‘in school’.
Statistically: all results were quoted ‘in whole numbers’ i.e. rounded up or down, which could misrepresent the real figures.
In fact the figure the previous year was 1.4% (rounded down to 1) and the next year was 1.9% (rounded up to 2). The difference
therefore was only 0.5%. 0.5% of 900 = 45 students – not statistically significant.
2 ‘Could help’ is not the same as any sort of certainty, ‘measurable’ could be very little indeed and, as it’s in combination with
other things, it could just as easily be the fruit, veg and pulses that are having that measurable effect. The rest are ideas/ questions of the sort to follow up on – not necessarily those same ones but equivalent ones. Note that in each subject there are specialist areas eg chemistry, physics, biology and in engineering especially – there is a need to decide whether you’d prefer to do general engineering or specialise in one of the areas straightaway.
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For other specialisms...
What do you think are the qualities you need to have to do well in your chosen specialism?
What evidence do you think you have to show that you have those qualities?
How do you think you can acquire such evidence?
Psychology
Books to read – Understand Psychology (Hayes), Games People Play (Berne), I’m OK, You’re OK (Thomas Harris), The Serial
Killers: the psychology of violence (Wilson), 50 Psychology Ideas you really need to know (Furnham), Tricks of the Mind (Derren
brown), anything by Oliver Sacks, Mindsight (Siegel), Bounce (Syed), The Element (Ken Robinson), these last two focusing on
motivation.
For web sites google The Encyclopaedia of Psychology. Look at experimental work of such as Milgram and find out what research is
being done at nearby universities and whether you can get involved in it in any way.
How do phobias arise? Why are people ‘cruel’? Is there such a thing as a criminal mind?
Theology
Books to read –A Very Short Introduction to Theology (Ford), The God Delusion (Dawkins), A History of God (Armstrong), The Case
for God: what religion really means (Armstrong), 50 Key Concepts in Theology (Rayment-Pickard).
Can Theology and Science work together or are they fundamentally at odds? (interesting here is the work of John Polkinghorne, who
is a theologian and an astro-physicist). Does Theology have a practical value?
Anthropology
Books to read – The Third Chimpanzee (Diamond), Tribe (Bruce Parry), A Beginner’s Guide to Anthropology (Hendy), The Book of
Peoples (National Geographic), The Innocent Anthropologist (Nigel Barley), The Naked Ape (Morris).
Anthropology is divided between Social or Cultural Anthropology and Physical or Biological Anthropology. There are courses
specifically in the former and some overlap with Human Geography. The latter overlaps with Human Biology and Genetics. Do a
study of the primates – what are prosimians, simians and apes? What makes man different and why/ how did he develop physical
differences? Why are witchcraft and magic important in many tribal cultures? Voodoo makes for an interesting study – just don’t start
sacrificing chickens at home – it can upset your parents!
For those of you who are interested in Archaeology alongside, follow up on those areas you are interested in, whether that be British
Roman and Anglo-Saxon, Egyptian, Central American or wherever. It would be a good idea to get in touch with a local Archaeological
Society (or Dept. of Archaeology at a nearby university if it has one) and arrange to spend some time on a dig. There is more science
to it than you might think and it would be very useful to familiarise yourself with it.
Music
It very much depends what type of music you are interested in, but it would be a good idea to dip into the music of at least a couple of
different time periods. Consider such questions as – is it valid to talk of ‘good’ music?, Why do composers go in and out of fashion?,
can jazz be properly explained?, can musical appreciation be taught?, is ‘electronic music’ a contradiction in terms?
Graphic Design/Communication
Books to read – 100 Ideas that Changed Graphic Design (Heller and Vienne), Know Your Onions (De Soto), How to be a Graphic
Designer Without Losing Your Soul (Shaughnessy), Graphic Design Rules (Bucher), How to Create a Portfolio (Fig Taylor),
Contemporary Graphic Design (Fiell).
Obviously build up your own portfolio and try to get work experience in a couple of very different companies/environments.
Sports Science
Please note that this is very much ‘science’ based in sport rather than the chance to enhance your own sporting performance. There are
other, very good courses too for such as sports coaching, sports psychology, sports management etc.
Books to read – Complete Guide to Sports Nutrition (Bean), Periodisation Training for Sports (Bompa and Carrera) and Sport and
Exercise Science: An Introduction (Griffin and Watkins).
Get as much practical experience as you can working alongside coaches for at least a couple of different sports and working with
different age groups. If there is a local Sports for the Disabled group, that can give extraordinary insights as well as their benefitting
from your help.
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Business and Marketing
Books to read – Brilliant Marketing (Hall), The Advertising Concept Book (Barry), Guerilla Marketing (Levinson), The Strategy
Book (McKeown), Strategy (Harvard Business Essentials), Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur (Branson), Anyone Can Do It
(Bannatyne).
Get involved in Young Enterprise, get at least a couple of different work experience placements, advertise events at school, offer
ideas of how to improve the school prospectus, get advertisers for the school magazine etc, offer your help to a local charity or
volunteer bureau.
Food and Nutrition
Books to read – Food and Nutrition (Tull), Understanding Food and Nutrition (Webster-Gandy), Deep Nutrition (Shanahan).
Look at sport and nutrition and contact your local NHS Trust, who should have one or two specialists to work shadow. Look at
particular topics such as nutrition during pregnancy or nutrition for the elderly (great projects for an extended project).
Drama
This is a really difficult one to advise on as it depends whether you are more interested in an academic course, which is like English
Literature but focused on plays, or want one that is hands on acting or musical theatre or one that gives you experience of theatre
management and technical work as well as work on stage or indeed on camera.
Books to read – So You Want To Go To Drama School (Freeman) is very helpful. Obviously read a wide range of playwrights,
experiment with different types of theatre and keep a portfolio of all you go to see, watch on TV, DVD etc. Be ready for questions
on what you prefer and why, what plays you’d like to act in/ direct and why and, if you are a creative writer, have synopses of your
work ready to show at interview/ audition.
In general
Episodes of the radio programme In Our Time (available on iplayer) cover a wide range of science, history, philosophy and English
topics and iTunes has lots of lessons, ideas and answers to basic questions. JStor is a digital library of academic journals on all sorts
of subject. There are lots on Netflix too but don’t get too distracted!
If any subject has been overlooked, feel very welcome to ask!
All services provided by the universities are free.
We are grateful for their willing participation in our conferences and for the
ongoing advice to students in our schools on all aspects of entry.
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Please note that all of these resources are copyright PiXL and may only be shared with students from PiXL schools. They may be
shared using school networks, MLEs or websites as long as access is secured and restricted to PiXL schools’ students.
For further questions and queries please contact Sian James at [email protected].
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